


Stay

by closemyeyesandleap



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Branding, Gen, Graphic Violence, Grief, Hallucinations, Heavy Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Intense, Post-Season 5, Proceed with caution, Relatively happy/bittersweet ending, TW: child sexual abuse (referenced), Torture, non-consensual nude photos, philindaisy, watchdogs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-20
Updated: 2018-12-22
Packaged: 2019-09-23 16:58:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,864
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17084168
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/closemyeyesandleap/pseuds/closemyeyesandleap
Summary: When a mission against the Watchdogs goes south, Daisy struggles to survive.At least she's not alone.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Please pay attention to the rating and tags. Chapter 2 is more graphic in terms of torture, but this fic will be more intense than my other stuff so proceed with caution.

“I really don’t want to hear it right now,” Daisy muttered. Her head rested against the rough concrete wall, and her temples pounded. 

Coulson shrugged, his lips turning up in an understanding smile.

Daisy curled up on the floor, pulling her bare legs closer to her chest. The cold skin of her knees met the equally frigid skin of her chest, bringing no warmth.

The heavy metal bands wrapped tightly around her wrists were attached the wall by a thick chain, limiting her range of motion. She shivered violently. She could barely see at all, but she could have sworn she could see her breaths.

“I know, I know.” She rolled her eyes. “How’d I get myself locked up like this? I mean, I’m supposed to be juiced up, right?” She gave a half-hearted tug at the chain, wincing as the edges of the cuffs dug into her already-raw wrists. 

“Well, to put it simply, this isn’t a normal wall, and these sure as hell aren’t normal cuffs.”

She glared at Coulson, who remained silent, watching her. “Leave it to the Watchdogs to find a noninvasive but still wholly shitty way to turn off my powers. These things also deliver an electric shock whenever Watchpup #1 or Watchpup #2 get particularly ornery, so, you know, nice touch.” 

She shivered violently again, and whispered, “Luckily, they’ve been coming in less and less. So we should be alone. For a while, at least.” 

Daisy sighed. “If you’re stuck in here with me, I suppose I might as well tell you how I got here.” 

Coulson nodded and took a few steps forward. She appreciated his closeness, as her vision was growing blurry. His figure seemed to fade at times before reconfiguring. 

“Things had been getting back to normal since… you know. Mack’s been a good leader. The U.S. government isn’t exactly SHIELD’s biggest fan, but we’re slowly developing trust. Of course, when I say ‘slowly’, I mean ‘outpaced by your average snail’ slow. Do you know Mack still has us operating from underground? He says that the Lighthouse is a perfectly good base, and the little funding the government is allotting to SHIELD has better uses.”

Coulson rolled his eyes. Daisy let out a humorless laugh that barely concealed the sound of her stomach rumbling. Daisy grimaced through the hunger pangs.

“Right? After all that time in space, I feel like we deserved a little freakin’ sunlight. But here we are. We were running small missions, recruitment ops, the like. A little too much PR for my taste. Then, we got word of an attempted terrorist attack on a congressman’s office. Dejá vu all over again, right?”

Coulson nodded.

Daisy continued, “The media insisted it was an Inhuman, since the video footage showed a seemingly invisible bomb exploding. Luckily, the building was empty because the congressman had gone to a luncheon along with all his staff. The congressman was the chair of the Committee on Inhuman/Human Relations, but he’s reasonable. There’s no way an Inhuman would attack him. I could smell the Watchdog stench a mile away.”

Daisy glanced around the small room. “Obviously, I was right. But I’m getting ahead of myself.”

“It was the Watchdogs, but it was way worse than we expected. We apprehended this girl, this kid. She was fifteen, but she looked like she was about twelve. She was scared to death but also angry as hell. We took her in to SHIELD. At first she didn’t want anything to do with us, but after a while, she opened up.”

“She _was_ Inhuman. She had the power to make any object that she touched invisible and undetectable and to enable that object to stay undetectable even after she let go. That’s how she got the bomb through the metal detectors at the congressman’s office. With her powers, the scanner didn’t pick anything up.” 

Daisy squeezed her eyes shut for a moment. “She was a runaway foster kid. She wouldn’t tell me what happened at her last house, but I knew that look.” 

“Even though she had run away from her foster parents, she was trying to keep going to school. A friend’s mom was letting her stay at their house. She went through terrigenesis when she was taking a shower in the school gym. She was terrified but tried to pretend it didn’t happen. A day later, she touched her friend’s dad’s iPad and it disappeared.”

Daisy began to shiver violently again. She blew weakly on her hands, trying to warm them, but her breath itself felt like ice. She had long lost feeling in her bare feet.

“You don’t look the least bit cold,” Daisy accused Coulson. He shrugged.

“Anyway, the poor girl freaked out. She thought her friend’s parents would accuse her of stealing the iPad, so she ran away. Her third day on the streets, a woman came up to her, offering her food and shelter. She was desperate, so she went with her. A few hours later she was locked up in a fucking cage until they offered her freedom in exchange for planting the bomb. She wouldn’t tell me how long they had her there. It was at least days, maybe longer.”

Daisy lifted her gaze to look Coulson directly in the eyes. There were parts of her own past that she had never told him, but she supposed it hardly mattered now.

“You know, I was barely any older than her when I ran away. By that point, I had been in all sorts of houses… group homes with far too many kids and strict albeit caring parents, short-term placements with moms who treat you like a princess and then get bored or angry when they realize real kids wet the bed and whine, picture-perfect families-of-four that last no longer than a flash, houses that were more war zones than homes, but my last family… they were a piece of work.”

Coulson’s eyes pooled with warmth and concern. Daisy sucked in a breath. 

“They managed to keep everything together for about three days after I moved in. Then the screaming started. The fights were bad enough, but when the bastard of a husband started coming to my room at night, I- I decided any place would be better than there.”

Coulson had settled down next to her, almost close enough to touch. Almost. She longed to curl in his arms. 

Instead, she focused on trying to control her shivering. Her eyes burned with the ghosts of tears that her body was too dehydrated to produce.

“I got lucky,” Daisy continued. “I fell in with a group of hackers. Teenagers and twenty-somethings with dirty apartments full of stale chips and Monster, but with couches to sleep on. Life wasn’t always easy hanging with them, but I learned how to hack. It was much better than it could have been.”

Coulson nodded.

“So this kid, you know, she really got to me. We tried to find the kidnappers, but she was so scared to tell us anything about them. Then the government started to really lay into Mack. They demanded she be taken into federal custody.”

“Mack was upset, but I was livid. Finally, he decided to go along with the feds. He kept telling me to ‘trust the system,’ that after talking to her it would be clear that she was the victim and the government would protect her. He said we couldn’t sacrifice our relationship with the US government by going against them.”

Daisy grimaced.

“Trust the system? Yeah, right. I wasn’t going to let the system anywhere near that girl.”

“I had thought that if I could get concrete evidence that the Watchdogs were behind the attack, and maybe even capture the ones responsible, the government would stop going after the girl. The day before the FBI was going to come pick her up, she told me that she would be willing to show me––only me––where she thought she had been taken.”

Daisy stared into Coulson’s eyes.

“I know, I know. I should have seen the red flag a mile away. But she had been so scared to talk to anyone, and after the serum, I felt pretty indestructible. I went with her. A second of distraction, and these cuffs were around my wrists.”

Daisy shrugged as best she could, though the cuffs held her hands tightly together. “Turns out she had them with her the whole time, out of sight and undetectable because of her powers. A second later I tried to quake and nada. Watchpup #1 and Watchpup #2 popped out of nowhere and that’s when I realized that these things are also full-on charged with electricity. That was fun.”

“I don’t blame the kid. The second she put the cuffs on me, she started crying, saying ‘sorry’ over and over again. Turns out they had more Inhuman kids locked up, and they were threatening to kill one of the girls if she didn’t turn me over.”

Daisy stopped her story as dry coughs began to wrack her body. Everything hurt. How cold was it in that tiny room? How long had it been since she’d eaten? 

At least her capturers had finally grown tired of shocking her for their own amusement and had decided to leave her alone. She had no idea how long their distraction would last, but then again, she had no idea how long _she_ would last. 

“Don’t worry,” Daisy whispered to Coulson, her voice hoarser than before. “The team got the kids out. Turns out there were more of them than we thought. It was just a small strike team—May and Piper, with Simmons as backup in case of injury, and Davis in the quinjet, I think. They were outnumbered. I was too weak to fight and this damn chain is so hard to break, so I told May to come for me last. While the team was getting the kids out, I was blindfolded and taken to wherever this is. That was four days ago.”

Another shiver ran down her spine.

“That’s when the real fun began.”

Daisy shuddered. She didn’t want to relive the four days without food, the electric shocks, the pails of ice water, the beatings, being violently stripped of her clothes and locked naked in a frigid room for days on end, feeling a sense of powerlessness that she hadn’t felt in a long time, not since…

“You know,” Daisy choked out at Coulson’s form, a solitary tear somehow squeezing itself from her dehydrated body to slide down her cheek. “Even in this hell, I wish you were really here.”

For the first time, the vision of Coulson spoke. “I know.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Be aware: chapter contains graphic violence, humiliation, non-consensual nude photos, and other generally awful stuff in the context of torture. It also has sexual components, but not rape.

_Crash!_

The door swung open. Daisy shuddered, drawing her legs an inch closer to her chest. Coulson turned and squared his shoulders with a glare at the men in the doorframe.

The larger Watchdog, a burly man with a scraggly beard, passed through Coulson and grabbed Daisy by a clump of her hair. 

“Missed me?” Daisy taunted. “I thought you guys had scuttled away like the cockroaches you— _argh_!” The man slapped her hard across the face. 

Her vision spun for a second and then refocused on Coulson. He was shaking his head urgently, his intense eyes focused on Daisy. She snarled. She would not back down, survival be damned.

“Find any other kids to carry out your dirty work? For the whole ‘humans are superior’ shtick you sure seem to need Inhumans to—” Daisy’s words were cut off by her own scream as a powerful jolt of electricity ran through her body, leaving her convulsing on the floor. Her arms were still secured to the wall, and her body contorted in agony.

“It should be clear who is superior here,” the bearded man sneered. 

“Congratulations,” Daisy spat sarcastically. “You have a little electricity and access to industrial-grade AC. Amazing.” 

Daisy anticipated the electric shock and gritted her teeth as it passed through her body. This shock was softer. The Watchdogs liked to vary the intensity of the shocks, trying to keep her on her toes, keep her fearing a particularly strong blast.

What they did not realize was that the lower intensity hurt her more. Sure, the strong blasts felt like fire in her veins. The lesser discharges, though, sent tickles and chills and tiny stings through her body that she associated with another time, with the caresses of a love that had forever deserted her.

Maybe it would be fitting, she thought, to die as once she had loved. 

“Don’t even think that,” Coulson urged, kneeling beside her on the floor. “Lincoln would want you to live. Don’t give up.”

“Who said I was giving up?” Daisy said through gritted teeth.

“Oh, you’ll be giving up soon enough,” the Watchdog chuckled, sending a strong blast through her body.

Daisy heaved as the pain subsided, “What are you even hoping to achieve here? You lost. People are learning more and more every day that Inhumans are just part of the world we live in. SHIELD took all—” she gasped through another blast, “—all the kids you kidnapped. You pups are incredibly stupid if you think anything you do makes a difference.” 

Another blast wracked her body.

Daisy barely got a second’s relief after the electricity left her body before a boot collided with her ribs. 

Groaning, she tried to curl up in a ball to protect her core from further blows.

When none came, she risked a glance at the Watchdog. She saw a flash of leather and barely had a moment to cover her face before the belt collided with her shoulder. Daisy faced the wall, covering her front but leaving her bare back exposed to the smarting blows raining down. 

After a minute that felt like much longer, the Watchdog stopped. Her grabbed Daisy’s hair again and yanked her head back so that she would look up at him. 

“Maybe not. But really, this is just fun. So that’s a win.”

The man released Daisy’s hair and grabbed her legs. He dragged them forward, forcing Daisy to lie flat on her aching back. Her arms remained awkwardly secured above her head. 

Daisy kept her gaze locked on Coulson’s. Her chest rose and fell with her pained, terrified breaths. So far, the men had limited themselves to assaulting her body with blows, blasts of electricity, cold, and deprivation, but the relish in the Watchdog’s eyes as he surveyed her exposed body made her already frigid blood turn to ice. 

He seemed to sense her fear.

“Don’t get your hopes up,” he said, squeezing her left breast until his nails dug in and she began to bleed. “I don’t fuck animals.”

Daisy tried to spit at him, but her mouth was too dry. Instead, she shot back, “Good. Neither do I.”

She thought she saw Coulson’s lips turn up in a proud smile at the fight in her, but then again, she wasn’t sure of anything anymore.

“Animals are meant for other things.” He nodded at the smaller Watchdog waiting in the doorway. 

The other man walked fully in the room. A metal rod extended from his right hand. The end glowed orange, accompanied by the sharp smell of burning iron. 

Daisy had only a second to comprehend what was happening before he bent down and pressed the glowing end directly on her chest, slightly above her breast.

As the Watchdogs branded her, all the other agony her body had endured faded away to irrelevance in a second as she let out a howl of pain. 

She was trapped on the ground, held down by rough arms and searing fire. Her vision swirled as agony wracked her body and the smell of her own burning flesh filled her nose. 

The removal of the iron did nothing to diminish her pain. The men laughed and flipped on a light switch. The light burned into her retinas as she writhed on the ground. 

As her other senses grew more blurred, the image of Coulson somehow solidified. “Hold on, Daisy. Hold on,” he urged her.

The larger Watchdog held her legs down again. The smaller man pulled a smartphone out of his pocket and snapped photos of Daisy lying on the ground.

Chuckling, he held the phone above her face, showing her one of the pictures. “This’ll be great for publicity. The famous Quake, property of the Watchdogs. Bagged and tagged.”

It took Daisy’s eyes a moment to settle on the photo but when she did, her ever-present nausea swelled and she gagged. The Watchdog’s symbol of hate was seared into her skin.

Coulson knelt by her. He reached out his hand, and she almost—almost—could feel his fingers caressing her uninjured shoulder. “They’re getting cocky. This could help May find you. You keep fighting, OK?”

But the pain, combined with weakness from lack of food, finally overwhelmed her.

“I- I can’t,” she whispered as wave after wave of pain washed over her.

The bearded Watchdog laughed. “Look at the bitch. Not so strong now, is it?” He stepped back and pressed a button on the control in his hand, sending another wave of electricity coursing through Daisy. 

A second followed, and then a third.

After another burst of searing pain, Daisy mercifully blacked out.

* * *

Daisy awoke to a dark room that seemed to swim around her.

“Hey? How are you feeling, Daisy?” Coulson asked, his brow furrowed.

Daisy started at Coulson’s voice and pulled her cuffed arms to her chest, trying to cover herself. Her knuckle brushed the edge of the raw burn, and she hissed in pain.

“Daisy,” Coulson whispered. “Don’t do that, please. I can’t see you. Just save your strength.”

 _I can’t see you?_ Daisy’s thoughts swirled in a confused mess of pain and humiliation. She hurt all over and could barely keep her eyes open. She was so, so weak. 

She vaguely remembered the two men, the Watchdogs, coming into the room. She remembered blows, the sear of fire. She remembered a voice… Coulson’s voice. But the other circumstances of her detention were just out of reach of her reason.

His hand settled on hers, and she breathed in deep. “I- I don’t know how much longer I can hold on. So… so tired.”

His fingers brushed hers. “You can. Listen to me. You’re strong. You’ll get through this. The team will find you. Hold on.” 

“H- how come you’re not all tied up?” Daisy asked thickly, her vision still fighting to right itself. 

Coulson gave her an understanding smile and shifted closer to her. He placed his arms around her. Somehow, his embrace didn’t hurt her scalded chest or battered back. Coulson didn’t answer her question. Instead, he replied, “You’re going to make it. You know why? You are loved. And you are strong.”

“D- don’t got my powers,” Daisy mumbled.

“Doesn’t matter. You aren’t strong because of your powers. They aren’t what is going to get you through this. Your determination will. The world needs you. It needs your passion for what is right, for defending those that other people have thrown away. It needs your heart. I love you, and I am so incredibly proud of you, the person that you’ve always been and the person that you’ve grown to be.”

Daisy blinked at Coulson in confusion. Coulson’s words felt oddly familiar. “I’ve… I’ve already heard all that.” Realization dawned on her and she felt as if another boot had knocked the air out of her chest once again. “In the… in your letter. You… you’re gone, aren’t you?”

The memories flooded back—a brief phone call, a marker over an empty grave, ashes scattered among the stars.

The gaping hole in her heart that had become her constant companion. 

Coulson held her tighter. “I’ll be here with you until you are safe.” 

Daisy sank down a little further. Coulson’s touch on her arms seemed to be growing more and more solid as her strength faded away. “I’ll… I’ll be with you soon enough.”

Coulson shook his head. “No. The team needs you. You need to watch over Melinda. She needs you. I miss you two so much. You are my family.”

Gray shadows blossomed in Daisy’s vision, yet Coulson remained present and solid, speaking aloud words she had only read.

“I d- don’t…” she murmured. 

Coulson gripped her shoulder. “Daisy, listen to me. Don’t you dare give up. Hold on! Hold…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope the comfort is shining through despite all the awfulness!


	3. Chapter 3

“I’ve got eyes on a building,” May said into her coms.

“Copy that,” Director Mack replied from base. 

May maneuvered the quinjet above the pine forest. She could barely distinguish the bunker below. Needles flew off the branches, and she pulled the jet higher into the air. She didn’t want to give away their presence before they had time to get in and rescue Daisy.

If this was indeed the location.

If she was even still alive.

“Damn it!” May spat as she surveyed the area. “There’s nowhere to land.”

“Do we even know this is the place? Couldn’t the photos be a misdirection?”

May tried to push away her mental images of the gloating photos that the Watchdogs had posted online.

Fitz had been able to pull possible geographic markers from the photos. Still, May cursed their own efforts for not finding Daisy soon enough. When the photos began spreading like wildfire hours before, she hadn’t known whether to hope they were doctored or real.

The second she examined the photos, though, she knew they were real—everything confirmed the worst, from the wild look in Daisy’s eyes to the birthmark just below her right hip that May had seen so many times in the post-mission locker room.

Guilt gnawed at her insides. She had let this—and maybe worse—happen to Daisy. She hadn’t been quick enough in saving the kids. Sure, Daisy had told her to save the children first, but if she could have only been faster… if her leg didn’t still slow her down.

She clenched her fists. Once she found Daisy alive and got her to safety, Melinda would personally dismember the beasts who had battered, branded, and humiliated her.

“May?” Piper asked again.

Finally, May pushed the thoughts aside for long enough to answer. “They’re here,” she responded, gritting her teeth.

Piper did not seem convinced, but she nodded. She cast Simmons an anxious glance.

“We’ll find her,” Simmons agreed.

“So, what’s the mission plan?” Piper asked.

May looked at Davis. “Stay alert on coms. Circle the area. Piper, Simmons, and I will drop down. Piper and I will infiltrate the bunker. Simmons, stay out of sight and on guard.”

“Come on, May,” Jemma protested. “I can fight. We’re short enough on backup as is.”

May glanced at the small team. Jemma was right. SHIELD was overburdened trying to contain and process twelve tweens and teens with out-of-control powers, not to mention the resultant political nightmare. YoYo had taken a strike team of their remaining ops agents to follow another potential lead. They were severely overextended.

“I know, Jemma,” May responded with a sigh. “Not carrying all those medical supplies, though. Stay back.”

Simmons nodded reluctantly.

“Approaching drop site,” Davis said, maneuvering the quinjet into position.

May, Piper, and Simmons each gave a terse nod and prepared to descend.

* * *

May crept through the bunker, turning left and right. It was deserted, but the silence did nothing to reassure her. What if the Watchdogs had packed up and left because there was no reason to stay?

_Enough with hypotheticals, Melinda_ , she scolded herself as she crept through the building. _Stay focused. Stay on mission._

May reached a short hallway and immediately knew before she opened any doors that this was the area she was seeking. Cold air rushed from the bottom of one of the doors, mingled with the putrid smell of urine.

She gave a final glance over her shoulder, Icer raised. Piper had followed in at the other corner of the building. She gave a terse nod at Piper, who planted her feet to stand guard while May entered the hallway. Simmons who was hiding a dozen or so yards from the bunker, keeping watch and waiting to rush in and provide medical services if necessary. 

May tried the door handle of the icy room. The door was locked. She looked around again and then lowered her Icer. She quickly picked the lock and pushed open the door.

The faint smell grew overwhelming as she walked into the small room, a scent mixed with something else, something other than urine. May’s stomach turned as she realized it was burnt flesh.

Her eyes adjusted to the lack of light, and her heart skipped a beat.

Daisy was lying motionless on the ground, eyes closed. The parts of her skin that weren’t blackened with bruises or an angry burned red were tinged a faint blue.

Her arms were locked in shackles, attached to the wall above her head with a short metal chain similar to the one restraining her when May had tried and failed to rescue Daisy the first time.

Daisy wasn’t breathing.

“No,” May whispered, falling to her knees by the motionless body. She placed her hand on Daisy’s neck. She was cold as ice.

A faint pulse, almost imperceivable, met May’s fingers, and she felt as if her own heart had restarted. 

“Daisy?” she hissed. She glanced over her shoulder, and then spoke louder. “Daisy! Wake up!” she begged.

May rummaged in her belt and withdrew two small, concentrated explosives that Fitz had given her to break the chain. She placed them against the wall and made sure they were a decent distance from Daisy’s head before detonating them.

The slight blast remained localized to the chain but shook the room. She heard footsteps in the distance and her breaths grew more rapid.

“Daisy Johnson! Damn it, wake up, agent! We have to go!” 

The combination of the sound of the chain breaking, May’s voice, and her own shift in position had jolted Daisy awake.

“Wha…?” Daisy blinked, out of focus, before her eyes settled on May.

“Thank God,” May breathed. She tapped her coms. “I’ve got her. She’s very weak, but alive.”

Three voices expressed their relief.

Daisy’s eyes fluttered shut once more.

“Lemme sleep.” 

May glanced over her shoulder again. For a moment, she didn’t hear footsteps and considered that maybe she had only heard Piper shifting positions.

“We’re here to get you out, Daisy. Can you walk?” 

Daisy didn’t respond.

“Daisy!” 

“May!” Simmons’ low voice sounded through coms. “Incoming Watchdogs. Four of them. You need to get out of there.” Moments later, May heard a clattering of sounds in the background. She sucked in a breath. _Come on, Piper,_ she thought.

She knew she should join Piper in the fight, but the memory of their previous incomplete rescue attempt was burned into her brain like the brand on Daisy’s chest. She would not leave her alone again to be whisked away to a third location, not when she was so delicate.

May reached down and tried to hook Daisy under her arms to pull her to her feet. 

Daisy whimpered in pain and struggled against May’s hands. 

May put Daisy down. “I need you to help me, Daisy,” she hissed. “I can’t carry you out of here on my own. Can you stand?” _Damn it,_ she thought. Why hadn’t they brought more agents?

Daisy squeezed her eyes shut and then settled her gaze on a point over May’s shoulder. She didn’t answer May’s question. Rather, she spoke to the empty space across the room. “Th- th- that’s nice,” Daisy mumbled, slurring her words. “You brought May.”

“Daisy, come on. We need to get you out of here!”

“Why… why’s she being so pushy? Lemme sleep. So… so tired.”

“You can sleep when you’re safe. Look at me! We need to go.” 

Daisy was shivering and did not seem to be entirely present. Her eyes were still fixed across the room, only occasionally flitting in May’s direction.

“Did she come to say goodbye too?”

May’s blood turned cold. She wanted to shake Daisy, to make her come to her senses, but she was afraid that any touch would hurt the girl still further. Instead, she replied, “I’m not saying goodbye. We’re getting you out of here. Come on! Stand up!”

Daisy blinked into the blank space. “Coulson, why… why is May being so mean?”

Coulson? May followed Daisy’s gaze into the empty space across the room. 

“Are you seeing Phil?”

Daisy’s eyes dropped to the ground, and she gave a weak cough. “What'd you mean? I'm seeing... you both... to say goodbye...”

May shook her head. “No, Daisy. I’m here. You don’t have to say goodbye.” May pulled at Daisy urgently. The commotion in the hallway seemed to be getting closer. “Come on!”

Daisy’s head dropped. “Wouldn’t that be nice.” 

May glanced anxiously over her shoulder.

She had no idea what to do.

Then, slowly, she turned her head to stare into the empty space where Daisy was looking.

“Phil,” she began, speaking urgently. “Tell her I’m real.”

May knelt in silence for a moment, then repeated her words. “Tell her I’m real.”

She felt insane, desperate in her plea. Tears sprang to her eyes.

“Please, tell her I’m real, Phil. Tell her she needs to come with me. Come on, Phil!”

She glanced down at Daisy, who was still staring at the empty space. The young woman looked confused and hurt. 

“I don’t want you to go away, Coulson,” Daisy murmured, her voice steadier than before.

May sucked in a breath. “That’s right, Phil. Please. I know you love her. I love her. I love you, but you need to let her go. Tell her to come with me!” May’s voice caught in her throat as she blinked back her tears.

To her relief, she saw Daisy nodding into the corner. “OK,” she whispered. 

“Thank you,” May whispered at the empty space. “Thank you, Phil.”

May helped Daisy to her feet. Daisy felt much lighter than May remembered. May had to support most of her weight, but slowly, she and Daisy were able to maneuver their way out of the room into the hallway.

May clutched an Icer awkwardly in her left hand, in case they encountered any hostiles. Instead, they merely met Piper, with a pile of bodies around her. 

“Took you guys long enough,” Piper joked, though her eyes spoke of worry as she reached for Daisy’s other arm. Daisy’s wrists stayed locked in the cuffs. Those would have to come off later.

Daisy winced as the three of them slowly made their way out of the bunker. 

As they emerged into the sunlight, May’s stomach churned. In the light of day, the welts and bruises spread across Daisy’s body stood out sickeningly. She had two black eyes and dry blood running down her chin. Below the angry brand, the outline of a large hand marked her breast in purple.

She wished she had been the one to take out the Watchdogs rather than Piper. 

“Argh!”

Both she and Piper screamed and dropped to the ground as a terrible pain passed through their bodies. Daisy slipped from their grip, and the pain left them. Daisy, however, remained on the ground, writhing. 

May looked around in panic for the source of the assault as Daisy continued to convulse.

Suddenly, two gunshots sounded, followed by two loud thuds. A moment later, Daisy stopped convulsing. She remained on the ground, moaning and twitching.

“Oh my God!” Jemma gasped as she rushed from the trees, lowering her gun. She gripped the control she had taken from the dead Watchdog in her left hand. 

“Thank goodness you stood guard,” Piper gasped.

Jemma knelt down and examined Daisy. She gingerly wrapped a blanket around her friend and between the three of them, they lifted Daisy.

“She’s unconscious, but she’ll be alright,” Jemma murmured.

“Let’s go home,” May said. The other two women nodded.


	4. Chapter 4

Two days later, Daisy awoke in a haze. 

Her right hand immediately gripped her left wrist, checking for the cuff. She gave a sigh of relief as she found only the rough skin of her wrist. She glanced up, half expecting to see Coulson’s smiling face.

Instead, her eyes settled on May, staring at her intently from a chair next to her bed in the med bay.

“It’s OK. You’re safe.”

Daisy nodded. She lifted her hand and brushed the gauze covering the brand on her chest.

May sighed. “Simmons applied disinfectant to prevent infection, but it will scar.”

Daisy dropped her eyes. “Guess I’ll get a tat or something,” she muttered, trembling. “I should have never been so stupid to go off alone.”

May shook her head. “If you hadn’t, all those Inhuman kids would never have been found.”

Daisy shrugged and winced at the pain in her shoulder. “Did the Watchdogs post those photos?” she whispered.

May’s fists clenched in anger on her lap. She didn’t want to tell Daisy, but she deserved the truth.

“They did. The media blurred them, of course, but elsewhere they’re… out there.”

Shame pooled in Daisy’s stomach. “Shit.” She knew she could spend days, weeks, years fighting the images online, but nothing like that could ever be completely eliminated. “Guess the bright side—if you can even say that—is that with those out there it will harder for the Watchdogs to claim that the Inhumans are the villains, and they’re the victims. They’ve shown themselves to be the terrorists they are.”

May nodded, her hand brushing Daisy’s. “We should have found you sooner.”

Daisy gave May a half smile. “You came through in the end. That’s what matters.”

Daisy glanced around the room. She was finally safe and warm, but she felt empty.

After a moment, May spoke. “Daisy… when I found you… you were seeing Phil, right?”

Daisy bit her lip and nodded. “Yeah,” she whispered. “He showed up—I mean, I started to see him––on the fourth day. After days alone, without food, in the cold, your brain… it loses its grip on reality.”

She squeezed her eyes shut. She did not want to think of Coulson as a hallucination. He had felt so _real_.

“I miss him,” she whispered, her eyes pooling with tears.

May nodded, her heart tearing in two.

“He… he told me that he loved you, to watch over you,” Daisy added as two tears slipped down her cheeks. “I mean, I know it was just my imagination, but… I feel like he would want me to tell you anyway.” She sniffed. "It was what he said in his letter too."

May squeezed Daisy’s hand. “I know.” She glanced at Daisy’s tear-strewn face. “He told me the same thing his last morning in Tahiti, about you.”

Daisy choked out a sob. 

She blinked away her tears. 

And for a moment—just an instant—she saw a face, his face, hovering over May’s shoulder.

“Goodbye,” Daisy whispered. 

Coulson gave her one final, warm smile and nodded at May before fading away.

**Author's Note:**

> Thoughts welcome!


End file.
